The RIAA has met with more legal trouble as they continue their relentless barrage against students, the dead, the elderly and the elderly dead. Over the past year, their more evolved tactics have been to file generic lawsuits against unnamed students, trying to pry identities from Universities and ISPs. This has been extremely controversial, especially since many consider it to be a circumvention of legal process and an invasion of privacy.

In New Mexico, a federal judge has decided that enough is enough for now, and has barred the RIAA from engaging in discovery of 16 unnamed defendants. All of these people are at the University of New Mexico, which like many schools in the U.S. has earned their ire for being a haven of pirates. The Judge based his decision on the RIAA's more or less backpedaling, who claim the harm from piracy is “irreparable” and yet at the same time can be cured with money:

The RIAA has argued that it would suffer irreparable harm unless immediate discovery was allowed, but Judge Garcia didn't find that argument convincing. "While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian 'suspension of disbelief' to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation,"
While many have chosen to settle with the RIAA and some Universities have rolled over, others are fighting back. As time goes on and people are seeing the real outcome of these cases, more people (and more institutions) are willing to put their foot down against what many consider to be unreasonable and outright ridiculous demands.

Maybe, just maybe, the RIAA will eventually learn that demanding money and threatening lawsuits is not the way to solve piracy.